West End Review: new work

 

WEST END REVIEW: MARCH 2012

Mark Shenton (Sunday Express) and guests Kate Bassett (Independent on Sunday), Charles Spencer (Daily Telegraph) and Matt Wolf (International Herald Tribune) convene to assess The Master and Margarita, the Complicite/Simon McBurney adaptation of Bulgakov (Barbican), Farewell to the Theatre by Richard Nelson (Hampstead), Can We Talk About This? by Lloyd Newson/DV8 (National); Zach Braff’s All New People (Duke of York’s) and David Eldridge’s In Basildon (Royal Court). Recorded at Dewynters, London.

I didn’t think this worked at all. I think there is absolutely the opportunity for polemicism in the theatre and I don’t mind that but essentially it’s a monomaniacal harangue on a particular topic and the form and the content are completely unrelated to one another.

Simon McBurney Richard Nelson Lloyd Newson islam Harley Granville Barker DV8 David Eldridge complicite Bulgakov Zach Braff